Barnwell sentinel. (Barnwell C.H., S.C.) 185?-1925, January 03, 1918, Image 7
TEN THOUSAND BLUEJACKETS FORM MONSTER LIVING FLAG
low, with no chance for their Jives,
whenever the, Moewe sigh tell 'another •
vessel, has beep told by others, and"
Smith’s narrative of th.it need not be
repeated. He arrived with the rest t
at Klel^Jenuany, on March 21, and j
next da^T with all the Moowe’s [>ris- |
oners, was> sent to Duel men, Westpha-1
11a, a town about ten miles from the ,
Holland border. t '
Captors "Oh Leave.”
"We were sent down there In third
class c<* r} C> Smith said, "with one I
guard to each ten men. The guurjfs ]
were all mldd-le-aged Germans -'who r
had been at the front and who were
home on furlough. They complained '
bitterly because when they got a leave
it wasn’t really, a leave at all. They
had to do._gyard duty or work In a
factory or on a farm. This trip last
ed all night, but we didn’t get’a scrap
(ST food till we had breakfast at Duel-
men in the morning.
"The camp consisted of a lot of low,
Connecticut Man Arrives Home
After Escape Into Sweden',
on Fertilizer Boat. — .
HERE IS “COLLEtfEISF /
PRIVATE IN U. S.-ARMY
• San /Antonio, Tex.—The 'best
ed ucate« 1 mai i in the soul hern <le-
part men t of the army hns, been
found in Private George B. L.
Thornton. He wuVbprn in Eng
land, but now is an American
citizen and enlisted man In the
quartermaster’s service. »Here
Is his collegiate' education: One
year In College St. Servuls, Liege.
Belgium ; one year Hi College St.
'Michael, Fribourg. Switzerland:
four years in St. Bede college;
Manchester, England"; Tfiur years
to graduatloh from the Universi
ty .of'Oxford.' He.Is getting $110
a month. ”
Cost 80 Pounds In. Seven Months B
fore Aid Came—Guards Worse Off
Than Prisoners and Glad to Get
Scraps ^rom Food the
New Yorkr--\Vhat Is a German pris
on camp like, from the prisoner’s view
point? •: -
What sort of food, treatment, com
forts (If!, any) do the then .receive who
are captured by the Germans?
How do the. captives stand German
prison conditions?
wobdqn: unpninted shacks, wfth plain
hoard tloorkrv Around the walls ran
bunks, one above another. Each bunk
bad a bag of straw for a mattress, and
two medium weight blankets. There
were four of these shacks in each In-
closure at Duelmen. Each inclbsure
held about 1,000 prisoners, and had a
12-foot barbed wire fence around it,
with the wire at the top bent inward
so you couldn’t get over. How many
of these inclosures there were—edph
with its four shacks—I don’t know,
but I was told there were 50,p00 pris-
Amerlenns are more than ever vi
the fafms I managed to get a pair <if
w ooden shoes #to keep my feet off the
ground.
"There had been promises of Bed
Cross packages and Y, M. C. A. boxes
at Brandenburg, but they hadn’t ar
rived '"when I left.
"At Luebeck . everything was much
better. They kept us lu a bjg'ware
house on the Hamburg-American quay,
and made us load and unload ships.
But here we hud steamer bunks to
sleep in and decent blunkets, and It
was luxury compared to the other
places. We had the same old bum
coffee and turnip soup—but our guards
got the same. Then in the sumnjer we
began to receive some clothing from
the International Y. M. C. A. and some
food boxes froi£ the American Red
Crpss through Copenhagen. \>
What Y. M. C. A. Sent.
“Every week we got a box that had
in ft 60 biscuits, some corned beef,
veal loaf, suet pudding, condensed milk!
one-quarter pound of tea, a slice of
bacon, a can of fruit, 60 cigarettes and
some tobacco. That sajv us through.
It was so good we felt sorry for the
poor guards and woulu-^-glve them
scraps. > They offered as high as 50
marks for' a pound of tea. And the
bacon they would have given anything
tally Interested In these questions,
since some of General Pershing’s sob
dlers were made, prisoners a few days
ago In a trench raid In France.
Through the narrative of an Amer
ican adventurei;’ who less than a
month ago escaped from a German
prison and who had had experience
with two other confinement camps,
the New York World is able to give
answers to. the question's. . - '•» .
1 - Captured by Moewe.
The narrator is Willet C. Smith of
8outh Norwalk, Conn., who reached
this country on November 6 from Swe
den, to which land "lie escaped from
Luebeck, Germany, by concealing hlm-
aelf In the hold of a vessel and ex
isting six days without food or wa-
oners
"Then there was another harbed
wire fence, higher and thicker, on the
outside of a roadway which rau around
the entire camp. Every 200 feet
around this barrier was a sentry box
and a sentry. Inside of each smaller
inclosure there were two armed
guards, marching back and forth.
Nationalities Separated.
“The nationalities were all separat
ed. The Frppch prisoners were kept
by themselves. They seemed to get
the worst treatment. The Russians
were by themselves and we Americans
were kept with the English. Nobody
got what you’d call good treatment.
"For breakfast every morning we got
a piece of bread an inch and a half
thick and about four Inches square and
one tlncup of what they called coffee—
hut I’d call good writer spoiled. I dhn’t
know what they made it out of, but It
was rotten, bitter stuff and not even
This'lmifiensp living Hug, complete in every detail, was formed by 10,001
Jiiejackets at the, naval station at Great Lakes, 111., a few days ago. It was
njd out' with consideration .of the law of perspective so that when photo-
.rnplied It stood out in proper proportions^. There were 290 men In the brill
nil 560 men In the pole. The flag Itself, measured 293 feet In length at the
ip aml*72 feet at the bottom. Grouped in the stars were men Crom nearly
Smith had been
a prisoner, first
aboard the German raider Moewe, then
tjn camp at Duelmen, then at Branden
burg and finally at Luebeck. for seven
months and one day. He fied on Octo
ber 11. • -
Summed up. his testimony Is this:
There is no particular brutality, no
clubbing with guns or stabbing with
bayonets as long as prisoners remain
orderly. But the food is Insufficient—
be fell away from 210 to 130 pounds—
and long continued subsistence upon
German prison fare alone hfts most
grievous effects upon the health.
Only the Red Cross and Y. M, C, A.
supplies are keeping the prisoners
alive at some confinement places.
Brandenburg.^ where about' 7Q.000
prisoners of allied nations were kept,
was the worst camp Smith encounter
ed. * This is in Prussia, not far from
Berlin. Duelmen, lit Westphalia, was
bad enough, although the treatment
was better. At Luebeck. which Is not
a .camp but a port where prisoners
are worked on the. waterfront, condi
tions were not had at all.
Guards Worse Off.
The German soldiers guarding the
prisoners were far worse oft there than
the captives. Smith declares. Re
lief organizations keep the prisoners
supplied with cuouglp/ood and clothes
to get along, with, and the middle-aged
guards, half starving and In patches,
beg supplies from their captive ene-
very state In the Union
AMERICAN TROOPS WHO ARE NOW FIGHTING IN FRANCE
"For dinner and supper we had the
same thing every day—-turnip soup,
with mighty few turnips in it. We
never hud anything ejse. No meat, no
potatoes, no' bread, even, except at
breakfast. You could take the turnip
soup or starve. It was Just about
enough to keep you alive. Some of the
fellows got so weak they’d have to be
Carried to the hospital. There they'd
get nourishing food for a few days,
but as soon us they were a little
stronger they’d be chucked o«ut of the
hospital. There wasn’t much of what
you’d ,call real suffering at Duelman—
and the guards Were decent enough—
hut It wasn’t much of a life."
Sent to Brandenburg.,
On April 3 Smith and his fellow
captives of the Moewe were sent from
Duelman to the notorious camp at
Brandenburg, which is on the Havel
river, between Berlin and Magdeburg.
Again they had an all-night trip with
out food and ^crowded- into narrow
wooden benches in the worst sort of
cars. -— -
"Here we had Prussians for guards,
nnd'they were,, wicked devils,"- Smith
went on. "The camp was the same
sort of a place as Duelman, with
harbed wire Inner “Inclosures, and then
u roadway circling the whole camp
and barred on the outside with wire.
"At Duelman they would turn us out
and count us only twice a day, but at
Brandenburg they gave us the ‘raus’ a
dozen times. ’They’d keep us standing
barefoot in the snow for hours until
some major would come up and verify
the final .count. By this time our shoes
had worn out, and most of us. actually
‘black hole,” with only a piece of
^'•ead a day to eat. Also a big Ger-
a*an guard “took a couple of cracks"
rj his face. *
"The Spanish ambassador came to
-s^e us Americans on June 1 and prom
ised to send us books and clothing,
hut I never suw any of them. They
dltWbegln to put a few potatoes into
theTurnip soup, and occasionally they
put about five pounds of meat into the
soup supply for 300 men.
r ... Another Getaway Chance.
"In October I made up my mind to
take another chance on a getawny. The
ships we were loading were plying be
tween Luebeck and Swedish ports, and
I thought I might hide on one of these.
They carried mostly salt fertiliser to
Sweden, though sometimes gome coal
and coke, and they brought -back pig-
irori and ore. I never saw them bring
in any foodstuffs. Sometimes the Ger
man ships would go out carrying
barbed wire and Iron rods for the
trenches on the Russian front. They
went to Riga, I believe.
“There was, -one boat, the Undine,
which traveled between Luebeck and
a Swedish port named Norrkoping reg
ularly. I gol acquainted with a Swede
on board her, and he told me one oth
er fellow had made his getawny to
NoFrkoping by Concealing himself in
the hold.
“My scheme was this: Kyery morn
ing the guard would get together an
early working crew of 12 men at four
o’clock. He would take them on board
while it was dark, to get tjie hatches
ready for the others. One morning
when I wasn’t in this squad I hid my
self ip the hallway where they always
lined up. The guard' counted his 12,
and then In the darkness I Joined
them. - As we .climbed aboard the
Undine he didn’t know he had 13. in
stead of ,12. He was a boneheaded
German anyhow, .
"I hid myself in the fertilizer—a
combination of salt and sulphur. ^Wh»t
It did to me was plenty. My feet are
still full of holes and the nails are
"They’re sick and disgusted with
the war, these fellows at Luebeck,"
8mlth says. "They’ would often say:
*Look at us, without enough to' eat
or wear! The kaiser's -no earthly
good! He's crazy. Germany’s starv
ing- and licked nnd yet he keeps on
fighting !*
Smith, a railroad hrakeman by
trade and a “boomer" by Inclination,
.sailed from Newport News on Januury
28 for Liverpool as foreman of 54
American horse-wranglers. When his
ship, "the British-owned steamer. Es :
meralda, was on her return voyage In
March she was captured, robbed* and
sunk by the raider Moewe, and her
crew added to the prisoners of that ad
venturous craft, who numbered at the
end of the -Moewe's raiding voyage
shove 600.
How the prisoners were shut be-
conn«TTtx oh FOMLtc miwwriPN
MADE BY FRENCH PRISONERS
were barefoot
THE THINKER
“Tin* Prussians hauled and shoved
us around like cattle, although I must
say I didn’t see any one struck or
stabbed who didn’t have It coming to
him.
"At Brandenburg we got. the same
old food—turnip soup, with never a
change. They made the strongest of
us work on farms outside the Inclo
sure, clearing the ground for the spring
planting; but we got no better food
than the rest.
“We nearly froze to death at Bran
denburg. There were small stoves In
the huts, hut they didn’t begin to worm
them.' The blankets^you could see
through them! We were all full of
insects and had to have our clothes
fumigated ever* two weeks, hut In a
couple o’ Vj# we’d be ns bad 4is ever.
<Set8 Job on Docks.
“I was about ready to take a des-
perate chance for escape when on May
1. they asked for 300 volunteers to go
to work on the docks at Luebeck.
They said they’d give us hoots, better
clothes and a mark a day for wages.
\ thought anything was better than
was
For six days then (an nil usual’y
long Journey) Smith remained In the
hold. When the vessel docked n*
Norrkoping and the hajeh was opened
he dashed down the gangplank to
safety. Thft Swedish police gave him
water and food; American- consulate
attache,s clothed him and sent him to
Stockholm and then to Christiania.
Nofway, and there he boarded the U.psr
Bergensjord for home*.— _
i.r ; . ' i
& k ;XV
mm- v
... •• f';:t
flf/./V’J
Adopted 22 Children.
Vineland, N J.—William J. Purvis
of Rosenhayn celebrated the forty-sec
ond anniversary of his marriage th<
other day by coming to Vineland and
Visiting the old hoipestead .on Oak
road. Purvis was married" In Mill
ville and the next morning he and ii ,?
bride ndopte<l five jrieedy children. The
couple have'kept that practice up «o-
tll now they can point with pride t(
a family of 22 that they have rained
atwlpent out Into the world, all Imbued
with the-Puryls spirit of Amelia- first
The foster father Is a survivor qf th*
Civil war and extremely patriotic
Brandenburg, so I volunteered and
taken.
"The clothes they gave us wereb
uniforms with a yellow stripe down the
pants and a yelloi* band fitted into the
sleevep^lth our number and the word
‘Krlegsgefatigenlager’ (war prison) ob
them.,
“They did give us better footgear,
but you were Just likely as pot to
get one boot and one‘shoe, and differ^
ent size**. And wb<o they half-soled a
shoe they did it with the upper part of
an old boot. They had scarcely any
leather ajr alL While I was w or kips on
This unique monumeut was made by;
French prisoners of war in the camp at
Stuttgart, Germany, us a tribute tM
tlieii” comrades who have died In bat
tle for their beloved country ♦
Kissing.,
An optimist hold.? fids pleasant proa-
pect out to enjpiged couptea: "Unmar
ried couples kiss and forgive, liar*
ried couples kiss and declare a true#
while the heavy artillery is being ah***
General Mpnn, commander of the Forty-second or “Rainbow" division, the
body of National Guard troops selected from 311 different states, who Is now In
France At the head of his tn*ops, is shown the left of the photograph. With
him Is'Col. Dougins McArthur, chief of staff of the "Rainbow" division. Both
the departure from till? side and the arrival In France of the Guardsmen was
kept a closely guarded secret.. ~f ■ -> N • ,
An old Frenchwoman seutecF In. the
Idst df what was once her home.
RK8UIT »Vt7
m
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